Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kathy, the narrator, is a clone. She was created to die being a donor of her own internal organs to those who wish to live longer lives. A whole class of such clones is posited by this novel, as Kathy reminisces about her childhood growing up in a boarding school in the British countryside. Ordinary people recoil from the clones, yet everything about Kathy’s narration shows her to be intelligent and extraordinarily kind. 

In this book, the clones have souls and fall in love just as the rest of humanity does. Kathy and her lover Tommy wish to defer for three or four years the onset of the medical operations that will eventually kill them, but there is nary one shout or one tear when they learn this is not possible. This, I think, is the author’s point. The docile victims do not seem to be aware that the whole system is unethical and horrific, and so they make no protest. 

Kazuo Ishiguro is perhaps best known for Remains of the Day, another work that takes as its subject social inequality.

Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah

The author was considered bad luck in her Chinese family because her mother died giving birth to her. The family was wealthy and feared the Communists, but family members feared their stepmother more than any external force. This memoir is gripping, a real page turner, as we want to know what happens to this unwanted, abused child.

There is a lot of material about Adeline Yen Mah on the internet. She has written a number of books and started a foundation to promote East-West relations. You can see her being interviewed about this book on YouTube. Writing and speaking out about the abuses she suffered gave her the backbone to triumph over her oppressive family.